In partnership with Meater
A whole duck, roasted on the Traeger, is the ultimate decadent holiday meal. When cooked with a Meater wireless thermometer, you are nearly guaranteed perfectly tender, moist and flavorful duck that has been cooked to the ideal temperature because you’re able to monitor the cook the entire time from your phone. Now is your chance to put duck on the menu this holiday season– everyone will love it!
DUCK IS A DECADENT CHOICE
A whole roasted duck on the Traeger– it’s soon to become a staple in your holiday repertoire. We got this beautiful whole frozen duck at our local grocery store and put together a top-notch dinner to share with family. Of course, everything is cooked on the Traeger, which makes it all better.
Roasting a whole duck on the Traeger is the perfect way to do it. With the fat that renders off the bird as it cooks, the roasting process is a little smoky and messy. So doing it outside on the pellet grill is the ideal solution. No smoke or lingering smell of roasted duck in the house, and the bird ends up with an extra layer of flavor from the wood-fired smoke the Traeger produces.
When served with potatoes roasted in rendered duck fat and a tart cranberry sauce, it’s an amazing holiday meal to share with family and friends.
GETTING A CRISPY SKIN
When you cruise the internet to learn about how to correctly roast a duck, there are myriad suggestions on how to best achieve taut and crispy skin on your duck. We found a method that works well for us– and results in really flavorful and delicious crisp duck skin.
METHOD
Once your duck is defrosted, remove the neck and giblets from the cavity. Trim off any excess skin and fat pieces from the duck (there likely won’t be much) and pat the thing dry with a paper towel.
Meanwhile bring a large kettle of water to a rolling boil. Place the duck on a metal rack in the sink. When the water is boiling, carefully pour half the water all over the skin of one side of the duck. Then carefully turn the bird over and pour the remaining boiling water on the second side. You will see as the water hits the skin how it tightens up quickly and begins to change color.
Pour off the excess water from the bird and place it, on the wire rack, atop a rimmed baking sheet. Put the whole duck on the baking sheet in the refrigerator, uncovered, for at least one hour and up to overnight. This will help draw extra moisture away from the bird’s skin, allowing it to get crisp as it cooks. Scoring the skin will help it further render.
DUCK FAT POTATOES AT THE SAME TIME
As you know, ducks are notoriously fatty and let off a lot of rendered fat as they cook. In this recipe, we put a 9×13 pyrex dish underneath the duck as it cooks on the grill and the dripping duck fat gets caught in the pan. Not only does this make cleaning the Traeger easier and more efficient (no need to have the grease hit the ash/grease pot) but it gives you the chance to cook the side dish along with the duck.
Admittedly, when we did the duck this time, we put the potatoes in the pan right away and the potatoes cooked in the dripping grease for the duration of the cook. We realize in retrospect that the time it takes to cook the duck– about 2.5 hours– is way too long for the potatoes to cook. They were tasty, but very crispy.
Next time, we’d put the pan under the duck as it cooks and about an hour into the cook we’d pour off some of the accumulated duck fat and then toss in the potatoes. That would give them the chance to cook really well in the duck fat without cooking for the entire 2.5 hours.
In this recipe, we put in ½ a yellow onion, sliced thinly, along with the potatoes. This, in theory, would work fantastic but again they cooked a little too long. I’d recommend adding the onion to the pan with 30 minutes or so left of the cook. That way they get melty and delicious in the duck fat, without overcooking.
A TART SAUCE ON THE SIDE FOR ROASTED DUCK
For this recipe, we also cooked up a batch of my mom’s homemade cranberry sauce recipe. The flavors of homemade cranberry sauce– sweet, tart and citrus– go really well with the flavor of the duck. It comes together pretty quickly and we cooked it on our Traeger Timberline XL grill’s induction burner while the duck roasted on the Traeger right next to it!
For my mom’s cranberry sauce recipe, it is pretty traditional but adds a few twists– lots of chopped up tart apple is cooked into the sauce which adds a whole new dimension. And, she always stirs in a good dose of creme de cassis liqueur towards the end for a final addition of flavor. I like to add lemon or orange to the sauce, which amplifies the tartness.
PRIMARY INGREDIENTS
- Defrosted whole duck
- Boiling water
- Seasoning of your choice (I used Traeger’s Fin & Feather rub)
- Small red potatoes
- Yellow onion
- Navel oranges
- Whole cranberries
- White sugar
- Tart apple
- Water
- Creme de Cassis
- Navel orange
WHY COOKING WHOLE ROASTED DUCK ON THE TRAEGER WORKS
The Traeger is the perfect vessel for cooking a whole duck. Naturally more fatty than chicken, duck is a bit notorious for being messy when cooked in the oven. The fat that renders off the bird drips in the pan and subsequently splatters all throughout the oven. That splatter gets hot and smoky, and you may end up with a kitchen or house scented in roasted duck fat.
For this cook, we put the prepared whole duck on the Traeger and cooked it in our backyard. Because of the way the Traeger is designed, you are able to get really good, consistent heat throughout the cook from the circular barrel that creates convection-style cooking. And by doing it outside in the grill, any splatter is easy to clean up (the grills are pretty easy to clean in general) and the neighborhood becomes scented by roasted duck- not your couch cushions.
STEP-BY-STEP
- Defrost your whole duck.
- Unwrap the duck and remove the gizzards, neck and whatever other pieces are stuffed inside.
- Place the duck on a wire rack in the sink.
- Bring 8 cups of water to a boil (we used an electric kettle).
- When the water is boiling, pour it over the duck in the sink, turning the duck once. You want to cover all the skin with hot water, and can watch it immediately become more taut from the hot water.
- Once complete, pour off any excess water and place the duck on the wire rack on a cookie sheet in the fridge for at least 3 hours, and up to overnight.
- The longer you leave the duck unwrapped in the fridge, the dryer the skin will become, which will make it more crisp when it cooks.
- A few hours before you want to serve it, pull the duck from the fridge and start up the Traeger to 350*.
- Using a very sharp knife, cut shallow crosshatch marks in the duck skin. This will help render the fat.
- Place a Meater thermometer in the thickest part of the breast. Pair it to the app and select whole duck.
- Season the duck all over with an herb–forward seasoning.
- Prepare a pan to go under the duck. You could put potatoes and veggies in the pan to start, or just about ½ an inch of water.
- Place the whole duck on the grill grates and the prepared pan beneath the duck. You want the pan to catch the drippings.
- Cook the duck on the grill for about 75 minutes, until the Meater thermometer reads 160. The finish temperature for duck is 165, but the carryover heat will get your meat to that temperature.
- Pull the whole roasted duck from the Traeger grill, tent loosely with foil for 10-15 minutes and then carve and slice the bird before serving.
- Enjoy
ALTERNATE RECIPES/PRODUCT LINKS
Products used in this cook:
- For this recipe for whole roasted duck on the Traeger, we used the Meater thermometer system to ensure that we had a perfectly cooked duck as the start of our dish. Some of the features I love about the Meater:
- Longer Range: Bluetooth to WiFi range extension built-in up to 165ft. Stand-Alone Mode: Cook without the use of your smart phone .
- Multiple Probes: Dual temperature sensors in each probe can monitor internal meat temperature up to 212°F and ambient / external temperature up to 527°F simultaneously.
- Guided Cook System: Walks you through every step of the cooking process to guarantee perfect and consistent results. You can also set up custom alerts/notifications based on temperature and/or time.
- Advanced Estimator Algorithm: Estimates how long to cook and rest your food to help plan your meal and manage your time.
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Whole Roasted Duck on the Traeger
Equipment
- Cutting board and sharp knife
- Cookie sheet and wire rack
- Tea kettle or saucepan
- Rectangular pyrex pan
- Aluminum foil
Ingredients
- 1 Defrosted whole duck
- 8 cups boiling water
- 1/2 cup seasoning of your choice I used Traeger’s Fin & Feather rub
- 1 pound small red potatoes
- 1 yellow onion
- 1 navel orange
Instructions
- Defrost your whole duck.
- Unwrap the duck and remove the gizzards, neck and whatever other pieces are stuffed inside.
- Place the duck on a wire rack in the sink.
- Bring 8 cups of water to a boil (we used an electric kettle).
- When the water is boiling, pour it over the duck in the sink, turning the duck once. You want to cover all the skin with hot water, and can watch it immediately become more taut from the hot water.
- Once complete, pour off any excess water and place the duck on the wire rack on a cookie sheet in the fridge for at least 3 hours, and up to overnight.
- The longer you leave the duck unwrapped in the fridge, the dryer the skin will become, which will make it more crisp when it cooks.
- A few hours before you want to serve it, pull the duck from the fridge and start up the Traeger to 350*.
- Place a Meater thermometer in the thickest part of the breast. Pair it to the app and select whole duck.
- Season the duck all over with an herb–forward seasoning.
- Prepare a pan to go under the duck. You could put potatoes and veggies in the pan to start, or just about ½ an inch of water.
- Place the duck on the grill grates and the prepared pan beneath the duck. You want the pan to catch the drippings.
- Cook the duck on the grill for about 75 minutes, until the Meater thermometer reads 160. The finish temperature for duck is 165, but the carryover heat will get your meat to that temperature.
- Pull the duck from the grill, tent loosely with foil for 10-15 minutes and then carve and slice the bird before serving.
- Enjoy
Video
Cranberry Apple Sauce
Equipment
- Knife and cutting board
- Saucepan
- Citrus zester
Ingredients
- 1 pound whole cranberries
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 tart apples chopped
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup Creme de Cassis
- 1 Navel orange
Instructions
- In a saucepan, combine the cranberries, water and sugar and bring to a boil.
- Turn the heat down as the cranberries begin to burst.
- Stir in the chopped apple and cook until the apples begin to dissolve and the cranberry sauce thickens.
- Stir in the Creme de Cassis and the orange zest.
- Cool to room temperature and serve at room temperature or cold.
75 mins?
2 hours?
2.5 hours?
Which is it.
What do do with onion and orange?
Thanks for the close read! Because everything I cook is done by temperature, times are a guesstimate. Each duck cooks differently! Onion and orange are stuffed in the cavity.